Searching for Millie
The usual search sites never turned you up, but then why would they? For as long as I knew you, you never had a phone.
The last time we “talked” was when I moved to Miami. We wrote letters then. Neither one of us had a phone.
No matter how hard her life was, Millie always started her letters wishing me good health. Our sons were the same age. Our birthdays were the same month: December.
She liked to draw, but had nothing to draw with, except her kids’ crayons; nothing to draw on but an empty cardboard box. One day when I went to visit, she drew a picture of a cat on a piece of box and gave it to me. I found a beautiful wooden frame for it, with scalloped edges, that I painted turquoise and gold. That picture is on my wall.
Millie had a gray tiger cat she rescued from the street. It lived in the fifth floor apartment on East 106th Street with her and the kids and Tony, safe from the cold. But who kept Millie safe?
When I was half crazy from sickness and pain, she wouldn’t take my money, wouldn’t let me use it to go back…. Millie and her friend with the car dropped me off near Bloomie’s and told me to go shopping. And I did. Who sez New Yorkers are heartless?
If Millie is all right, Cris wants to know. Millie, mother of Steve and Samantha. Millie from the program. Migdalia Morales, my best friend. I never forgot you.